


post tenebras lux

by coalitiongirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Emma, F/F, Lots of Murder, Robin Hood is Dark One Emma Swan's minion do they make tags for that, mentions of rape/non-con, post 4b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3958681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin's hurled across the room in the next moment, Emma dark-eyed and furious as gold energy ripples across her skin. “Let me tell you something about me,” she hisses, and her hand is trembling at his throat now as though it’s an effort not to strangle him on the spot. “I always, <i>always</i> know when people are lying to me. Now, why the <i>fuck</i> aren’t you making Regina happy?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is strictly Swan Queen (not even OQ kissing, promise, and Emma interacts with Hook exactly once) but Robin Hood's POV, sorry y'all. He does get kicked around a lot, if that's any consolation~

It’s late at night and the mayoral mansion is silent and full of shadows. Robin doesn’t know what he’d expected when he’d been invited to stay there by the dull request of a woman whom he’s barely seen in her own home since. The boys playing, perhaps. Regina downstairs with some cider and a welcoming smile.

 

Instead, he’s alone with Roland in what feels like a death house, sometimes, like something is sick within it and slowly fading away. It had been like this when Marian had been pregnant and ill, and their camp in the woods had gotten grimmer and grimmer with the shadows of mourning. Regina comes home to cook breakfast for Henry in the mornings and then leaves again, and none of this is as he’d imagined.

 

He opens the door to the bedroom and Emma Swan says from the corner, “Tell me about Regina.”

 

Robin drops the book he’d been holding and stumbles backward.

 

“Regina,” the mirage shrouded in darkness across the room repeats, and Robin can only gape at her in surprise. He’d barely known Emma even when she’d been Regina’s friend, a sheriff he’d actually liked who’d eyed him around Regina as though it hadn’t been mutual. He takes a careful step back as the Dark One speaks again. “Is she happy?” 

 

There’s no answer he can give to Emma but, “Yes,” even when it’s a deep, deep stretch of the truth. Of course Regina isn’t happy. Regina is holed up in the author’s house with Henry every hour of the day while he’s alone in her mansion. Regina avoids his touch and hasn’t so much as kissed him since the moment Emma Swan had vanished into a whirling tornado of dark energy. Regina is red-eyed and frail now, and when he suggests food or a break, she looks at him like he’s the enemy. “She’s happy.” 

 

He’s hurled across the room in the next moment, Emma dark-eyed and furious as gold energy ripples across her skin. “Let me tell you something about me,” she hisses, and her hand is trembling at his throat now as though it’s an effort not to strangle him on the spot. “I always, _always_ know when people are lying to me. Now, why the _fuck_ aren’t you making Regina happy?” 

 

“She’s…” He chokes against a hand that only seems to be getting tighter by the minute. “She’s grieving,” he manages, and Emma drops her hand and takes a step back, brow furrowing.

 

And she looks genuinely concerned and bewildered at once when she says, “Grieving for who?” 

 

Robin nearly laughs before he sees how her eyes darken at his smile. She’s volatile  in a way he’s never seen before- had Regina been like this, once, murder in her eyes at the drop of a hat?- and he has to remind himself to be cautious. “You _vanished,_  Sheriff. They’ve tried summoning you with the dagger and you never came. They all thought you were dead.” 

 

Emma’s eyes clear. “Oh. She’s taking care of Henry. He must be devastated.” 

 

“No, she’s…” He sighs and gives up. “Yes. They’ve been inseparable.” He’d walked into the author’s former home a few days before and found them both on a couch together, clinging to each other with the dagger resting unsheathed on Regina’s lap. Another failed summoning. “Why is it that no one can summon you?” 

 

Emma looks down. “After all that darkness went free, it took…time before I was fully tethered to the dagger. I couldn’t do anything for a long time. Now I can.” Her eyes are haunted when she glances back up, piercing him through as sharply as an arrow. “And I need your help now.” 

 

“My help?” he repeats. 

 

“Two things.” She raises two fingers. “You’re a thief, yeah? I need you to steal something for me.” She steps forward again, close enough that she can touch his chest right over his heart. He sucks in a breath and her eyes gleam an inhuman shade of blue. “And you had fucking better make sure that Regina is happy the next time I visit.”

 

* * *

 

“I want to make you happy,” Robin tries when he’s seated in the author’s mansion with Regina and Henry. He’s brought Roland along in an attempt to not be shooed out of the room at once, but even Roland isn’t enough to keep Regina from jerking up and walking to the bookshelf, away from him. 

 

He follows her. She says, “Emma wanted to make me happy.” Her hands are trembling against the bookcase and Robin can’t see her expression from his angle. “So maybe let’s put a cap on our quest for my happiness, shall we?”

 

“Regina…”

 

Regina twists to face him, looking very irritated and tired. “You know what’ll make me happy? Emma, safe and sound and not under the influence of this… _dagger_.” She waves it at him and then shoves it back into the sheath she’d magicked up for it at her waist. “I care very little about anything else right now.”

 

“You still think she’s alive,” he says, relieved at that step forward. “I thought you’d given up.” 

 

Her eyes flash with the same fury as Emma’s do, for a moment, the two of them mirrors of unstoppable force in their protectiveness for each other, but Regina contains it better. “I am never going to give up on her,” she says, her voice cold, and he takes a step back.

 

She softens, as though she’s remembered for the first time in days who he is to her. “I spent _decades_ keeping Daniel’s body intact in case I could someday bring him back,” she murmurs. “I will spend decades searching for Emma if I have to.”

 

Daniel had been her first love, the boy who’d launched her vendetta, and Robin wonders at the comparison to Emma and how deep Regina’s friendship had gone. Emma had always looked at Regina as though she'd been about to drown and Regina had been her lifeboat, and Regina had looked at Emma the same way in New York. 

 

He feels a prickle of doubt, remembering too a hoarse shout of _Emma! No!_ and Regina’s eyes horrified on Emma as the inferno of dark energy had taken the other woman. _No_. He’s just inventing twists where none had existed.

 

He says, “I’m sorry. I’ll go,” and Regina gives him a tight smile and turns away, never noticing the new weight in his boot as he calls Roland and walks out.

 

He is, after all, a very, very good thief. It's the one thing about himself that he's still sure of.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t remember the woods here as well as he once had. He’d been here too briefly and away too long and his men had settled down, found more acceptable homes and pastimes than robbing carriages in the woods. It’s a challenge to find a place rarely touched by people, and so he winds up in the woods a mile from the town line, far from civilization, before he takes out the dagger. 

 

Emma’s replacement had been a cheap copy, one Regina will realize is a fake soon enough, and he can already see the differences in their make with the practiced eye of a thief. “Dark One, I summon thee,” he ventures, and Emma blinks into existence with a puff of gold.

 

She stumbles in place, staring around in alarm, and only after she twists around to see him does comprehension register in her eyes. “You.” 

 

“Me.” 

 

“You got the dagger.” She moves forward, hand outstretched, and he says swiftly, “Stop.” 

 

She freezes, her face twisting with frustration and then rage as she understands why she can’t move. “You–! I shouldn’t have trusted you.” 

 

“You can trust me,” he says carefully. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea to give you this.” He isn’t a fool, though he’s felt like one more and more over the past few months, and he knows better than to underestimate the Dark One.

 

Emma sneers. “So, what, it’s better for someone else to have absolute control over me? Bullshit.”

 

“What do you do when you aren’t here?” Robin persists. “What did you do when you were finally able to _do something_?” 

 

Emma’s face is suddenly devoid of expression. “I wouldn’t hurt anyone I’m here to protect. I don’t even…” She shrugs, uncomfortable. “I was looking for Merlin and some people pissed me off.” 

 

“So you killed them.” 

 

“Whatever.” Robin had preferred the barely contained rage to this indifference, the bland implication that Emma has _changed_ irrevocably and will break Regina’s heart all over again. “Give me my dagger.” 

 

"You've been so persuasive about that being a good idea." He dodges the punch as it fires out but it still nicks him on the side of his face, hard enough to have his head spinning for a moment. "Don't-" She's watching him, eyes narrowed, and he realizes suddenly that this is a test. "I won't use it to control you," he says instead. "You have my vow."

 

She cocks her brow, her fist speckled red with his blood, and laughs. "Your vow? You cheated on your wife while she was in a coma. What's your vow worth?"

 

"That was-" _I was in love with Regina, I didn't think Marian would ever wake, it wasn't even truly Marian..._ A dozen retorts run through his mind, a dozen excuses he tells himself that have never been good enough, before he thinks better of antagonizing Emma anymore. "You wanted Regina and me to be together!"

 

Emma scowls at him. "You aren't even making her happy. What good are you?" Her fist twitches again and Robin squeezes the dagger.

 

He opens his mouth to speak and sees the fear in her eyes. But he doesn't command her. "If you want Regina to be happy, let me return this dagger to her. Let her summon you and _see_  you and I swear, she'll be happier then." 

 

The fear is magnified tenfold at once, Emma closer to alarm than he's seen since she's first appeared to him. He thinks of her shouting into a whirling void about Regina's happiness, certain that somehow this is worth sacrificing her soul for. “No,” Emma says quickly. “No, they can’t see me like this. Especially not Henry and Regina. Regina tried too hard to keep me from…” For the first time, Emma looks ashamed. “Hold onto the dagger,” she decides. “Never let them know you have it.” 

 

“I’ll do my best.”

 

Emma leans forward, the uncertainty gone from her face. “You’ll do better than that,” she snarls, back on the offensive. “And if you abuse it for one instant, you’d better hang onto it forever or I’ll make you wish you’d never been born, _dearie._ ” She spits out the final mocking word, sucking in a breath and then releasing it, and she rubs her eyes with an irritated groan and says, “Root beer.” 

 

He blinks, unsure that he'd heard correctly. “What?” 

 

“Root beer. Regina loves root beer. From a bottle, not a can.” Emma bites her lip, mournful with the admission. “She’ll never admit she likes it- she calls it a kiddie drink- but she’s lying. Bring her some root beer. Rekindle your…whatever. _Make her happy_.” The same missive in place again, Emma vanishes as quickly as she’d come.

 

* * *

 

As per Emma’s instructions, Robin waits until Henry and Roland are in school and then drops by the author’s mansion with two bottles of root beer. He holds one out to Regina, trying for a smile. “A little bird told me you’re a root beer fan?”

 

Regina stares at it, her mouth opening and closing as though she’s out of words. Robin says, “Regina–?” and she takes in one shuddering breath and vanishes in a cloud of purple.

 

* * *

 

He’s drinking hard at the Rabbit Hole and doing his best to forget the way Regina had clutched the fake dagger in its sheath when she’d stopped by the house a few hours before to urge Henry to sleep. There’s a man next to him and the bartender flits from one of them to the other, the last two customers for the night, when there’s a flash of light behind him and both the man and the bartender are suddenly dropping to the ground, sightless with red streaks across their necks. Emma says jokingly, “That’s one way to clear a room.” 

 

He nearly falls off his chair, scrambling for the boot where he’s been hiding the dagger. “Emma!” Her skin is positively sallow now, lighter than Rumplestiltskin’s had been but still with early signs of scaliness. She grins at him like a grimace and he says, tucking the dagger away lest she assume he’s commanding her, “You can’t just kill anyone in your way!” 

 

“Why not?” She shrugs moodily, darkness flitting in and out of her eyes. It’s the life that still shines in them in this moment that makes her so terrifying. “They don’t mean anything to me. I have no use for them.”

 

“So…you plan on killing everyone who means nothing to you? That’s most of Storybrooke. That’s _me_ ,” he says, and regrets it as soon as he does.

 

Emma grins again, the humor returned to her face. “You, I still have use for. You’re Regina’s happy ending, right? Do that okay and you survive.” 

 

It’s only then that it registers that this is a _threat._ Those two men were killed to teach him a lesson. His heart pounds in his chest. “I’m doing what I can,” he says irritably, as frustrated with his efforts as he is with Emma.

 

“It isn’t _enough_ ,” Emma says with equal heat, and it’s more forceful than usual, more desperate. His brow furrows and she says, by way of explanation, “We’re going to see her.” 

 

“Wha–“ But they're already in another place, standing in the sheriff’s station, and Regina shows no sign of noticing them. She’s curled up in a chair behind the desk, staring blankly at the computer screen with one hand on the mouse, clicking every few moments. 

 

He darts a glance in Emma’s direction and is momentarily stunned at the devastation on her face, the terror-sorrow-yearning that writes volumes across it and freezes something in her eyes. “Regina,” she murmurs.

 

“Emma,” Regina whispers across the room, but she’s still looking at the computer screen. Emma crosses the room swiftly, moves past him in a flash and is standing behind Regina before Robin can follow. Regina’s head turns slightly, her forehead furrowed as she studies what must appear to be empty air in front of her, but she turns away as Emma stands in place.

 

Now both women’s eyes are glued to the computer screen, and Robin stands behind Emma and peers at it. Regina had been flipping through pictures in one of Emma’s folders and she’s stopped at one that must have been taken while Robin had been in New York. It’s a _selfie_ , Robin thinks they’re called, Emma’s face squashed next to Henry’s in the frame while Regina tucks her head over Henry’s, mid-eyeroll. 

 

“That was the only time she’d ever willingly taken a photo with me,” Emma laughs, and it’s different than the cold laughter of a murderer. It’s wet and rueful and Emma shifts back and forth between the Dark One and Regina’s closest friend the moment she’d entered the room with her. “I have a few Sidney snapped of me with her back when she had him on stalker duty, but they don’t count. This one…why is she…?”

 

She moves closer to Regina, standing just behind her in the seat, and Regina is crying silently now, tears slipping down her cheeks in a moment of unrestrained weakness. Emma kneels at her side, eyes wide with comprehension, and she reaches out with a single finger to catch a stray tear that escapes from the tip of Regina’s chin. “This?” she whispers. “For me?”

 

“For you,” Robin agrees, and Emma whips around as though she’d forgotten that she’d brought him here. He tries for a smile but thinks he must look sick instead. “She misses you.” 

 

“No.” Emma shakes her head. “No, we weren’t even…I don’t even know if we were _friends_.” 

 

“I’d think that jumping into eternal darkness for another woman might make you at least friends.” _More than that, even_ , he thinks and then dismisses.

 

Emma leans forward, her forehead resting against the chair seat just below Regina. “She tried so hard for so long. That couldn’t be her ending. I didn’t want her to lose anymore.” Regina’s tears are still falling and Emma’s hand is cupped beneath where Regina is resting against the back of the chair, catching little droplets in midair. Robin imagines them glistening and vanishing to Regina’s eyes, gone as surely as Emma herself. “Everyone deserves a happy ending,” Emma breathes, and she gazes up at Regina as though she’s the sun.

 

* * *

 

Regina manages to pull herself away from research to join him at Zelena’s second ultrasound, which Robin thinks is an indication of commitment that he hasn’t seen since the sacrifice. He’s relieved, in a sense, even as dread suffuses him at a return to his last great mistake.

 

The nurse is absent when Regina stalks through the hall of the asylum, Robin trailing behind, and Regina’s heels resound and echo in the silent hallway. “Here,” she says, yanking open the door. “Hello, _Si_ –“

 

The room is covered in blood. Robin gapes for a moment and Regina lets out a strangled gasp.

 

Zelena is bent out at impossible angles on the floor, her eyes sightless and her skin streaked with blood. It’s still oozing out in some places, fresh and raw, and her face is bulging with bruises as though it had been beaten hard with a fist before she’d been killed. “No,” Regina whispers, looking horrified. “Who did this?” 

 

“It’s what she wanted,” Emma says stubbornly from behind them. Regina doesn’t turn and Robin can feel his eyes red and angry as he twists to see her. Her knuckles are caked with dried blood and her eyes still gleam with murderous intent. “She might not admit it, but deep down, she wanted that baby dead and gone. Deep down, you do, too.” 

 

He forgets that he’s supposed to be subtle about Emma, that he’s keeping her a secret, _that had been his baby_ , and he clenches his fists. “That was our baby. You killed our baby.” Regina doesn’t seem to hear anything he’s saying. She’s crouching beside Zelena, devastation on her face.

 

“Please,” Emma scoffs. “I think you’ll do just fine without your rape baby.”

 

“My…” _Rape baby_. _Rape._  “I wasn’t…” He shakes his head to clear it.

 

“Yeah, see, I’m not from the Enchanted Forest. Here we care about things like…oh, _consent_.” Emma grins humorlessly at him. “I got rid of your rapist and the baby you were going to raise with her. You’ll both thank me later.” 

 

Regina hasn’t looked up yet once, touching Zelena’s jaw with delicate fingers that might have indicated something like _care-_  or the beginnings of it- and Emma flickers out of existence as Regina reaches for her sheath and slips out the fake dagger. “Dark One, I sum- I summon thee,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “Dark One, I summon thee. _Emma_.” 

 

“Regina?” His voice comes out too high and the real dagger is a guilty weight against his leg. “What are you doing?” 

 

Regina turns to look up at him at last. “Emma did this,” she says, her voice rough with unshed tears. “I know it. She’s alive out there and she…” She gazes down at the dagger again, traces the curve of it, and studies it as though she’s looking at it for the first time.

 

* * *

 

Regina takes approximately thirty seconds of actually staring at the dagger before she knows it’s a fake, and they’re storming through the streets of Storybrooke moments later, Regina with blood still wet at her knees and palms as she moves ahead of him toward Rumple’s shop. She throws open the door and snarls, “How many times are you going to kill my sister?” and Robin loiters in the doorway apprehensively as Rumple casts an alarmed look at Regina. 

 

Regina hurls him backward with magic and branches sprout from the wall and hold him in place as Belle snaps, “Regina! _Regina!_ ” 

 

“Where’s the dagger?” Regina demands. “What have you done with Emma?”

 

“Emma?” Rumple repeats. “You’ve found her?” 

 

“Don’t play innocent with me.” Regina thrusts the dagger at Rumple and Robin winces. There’s no reason to believe that he’s the guilty party here, that he has any connection at all to Emma Swan, but he also knows better than to underestimate Regina Mills on a mission.

 

Rumple frowns. “Well, that’s obviously a fake. You never noticed before?” 

 

“I don’t particularly enjoy looking at it!” Regina is frantic, nearly wringing her hands, and the branches tighten around Rumple. Rumple chokes.

 

Belle says again, “Regina!” and Regina drops Rumple back to the floor. He’s gasping for breath and Belle glares up at her. “He didn’t do anything. He doesn’t have the dagger.” Rumple wheezes in agreement. 

 

“Maybe we should go,” Robin says carefully, and Regina takes a step back, her eyes narrowed as she turns on her heel and marches out.

 

* * *

 

There are group research sessions at the house after that, and those are the ones where he doesn’t quite belong anymore. Snow and David have been clinging to each other and Neal since the sacrifice, Hook sits alone radiating murder at anyone who talks to him, and Regina and Henry are curled up together flipping through books. He earns a cold look from Henry- one he’s never gotten before- when he tries sitting next to him, and instead he moves across the room to turn pages with Roland looking at the pictures over his shoulder.

 

He steps outside late at night, muttering something about a breather, and when he’s in the woods behind Regina’s house, he finally whispers, “Dark One, I summon thee.” 

 

Emma appears, scowling fiercely. “You shouldn’t be summoning me now. They’re all _right there_!” 

 

“Yes, and they’re going to find out eventually that I have the dagger. Regina has a spell–“ 

 

“Shut up.” Emma wheels around, a hand pinching her forehead. “Let me think.” She turns around a moment later. “You can’t leave Storybrooke. Not again. Regina needs you. But you’ll need to…” She vanishes without warning.

 

“Emma?” he says, and then he hears the low laugh behind him, bitter and caustic.

 

“Well, well, well,” Hook says, and Robin tucks the dagger away a moment too late. “Look who’s got the dagger.” 

 

“It isn’t what you think-“ Robin begins, but Hook is already hurtling toward him, his hook thrust in Robin’s face so it’s all Robin can do to throw him off. Hook is smaller than him but wiry and determined with an appendage that can slice him open, and he can feel the pain of the first cut somewhere near his knee.

 

He grabs his crossbow but Hook is already swinging a gun around to point it at him. “Give me that dagger, thief,” he orders.

 

“It isn’t yours to have.” 

 

“I’m _in love_ with the Dark One,” Hook snarls. “She loves me. If anyone has a right to it, it isn’t fucking Regina or you. It’s me. It’s mine. She’s mine!” He fires a bullet and Robin dodges just in time, his finger releasing a bolt into the side of Hook’s arm. 

 

Hook howls with rage and throws himself at Robin again, shouting now, _It’s my right, she’s mine, she’s mineminemine_ until Robin is bloody-faced and Hook is on top of him and he thinks he sees Emma framed between trees in the woods but his eyes are blurring and Hook’s hands are yanking at his boot and seizing the dagger within.

 

He gasps out a laugh, high and triumphant, and then, abruptly, there’s a flash of white and red and the laugh turns to a gag. There’s a hole in his chest, a bloody mess of leather and skin and muscle that’s bleeding out onto Robin, and Emma stands over them both with the dagger in her hand and her mouth parted as she watches Hook bleed out.

 

“Emma,” Hook groans. 

 

“No one controls me.” Emma’s voice is unsteady, and when she laughs, it sounds less malicious and more shaken. Robin had been there when Emma had told Hook that she’d loved him, and he can’t imagine what capacity that had been in when Hook hasn't even warranted a mention from her since, but it must have been _something_. “Oh, god.” 

 

She stumbles backward, leaning against a tree as she keeps laughing, high and shrill like a parody of the last Dark One’s laugh, and someone who isn’t Robin breathes, “Emma?” 

 

And _oh_ , they’ve all half-assed this thing, because Regina is standing on the patio and Emma is still holding the bloody dagger and Robin is half under Hook’s corpse. Regina takes a step forward and Emma takes a step back and Regina says, “Emma,” again like a command. Emma stills as though Regina had ordered it with the dagger, her laughter growing more and more hysterical as the tears start streaming down her face.

 

Regina steps across the yard in a flash, stepping over Hook as though she doesn’t notice either of them are there, and she reaches for Emma. “Emma,” she whispers a third time, hand outstretched to her.

 

They’re close enough to touch when Emma lets out a strangled, “I can’t-“ and Regina’s hands pass through Emma’s as they fade out of sight.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Robin is dumped unceremoniously into one of the cells at the station by a grim-looking David who won’t respond to his explanations. He sits behind his desk, arms folded and jaw grinding, and waits in silence until Regina sweeps into the room, followed by Rumplestiltskin. 

 

Rumple hangs back but Regina waves her hands and appears on the other side of the bars, running her hands over the cuts on his face to close them. Her touch is brusque and businesslike and her expression is severe, as though if he says anything, she’ll stop healing him.

 

She only does a partial job, enough to close the wounds but not heal them, and then she’s pinching his chin painfully with new fire. “You ordered Emma to kill Zelena,” she accuses. 

 

“No, I–“ 

 

“You’ve had your own agenda all along.” Regina grits her teeth. “You’ve been working against us– god, for how long? Were you ever in love with me? Were you even my soulmate?” She looks angry and vulnerable and she’s shaking, and he retreats back, frustrated with all of this and Emma most of all.

 

“Of course I am!” He reaches for Regina and she steps back, looking repulsed. “I never _betrayed you_. I never wanted Zelena dead.” 

 

“That’s a lie.”

 

“Yes,” he admits, because of course it is. They’ve both thought about it, he’s sure, about how much _simpler_ it all would have been without her and this baby. But they’ve also been determined to love the baby despite its mother, and Zelena and Regina had been…sisters, of a sort, even if they’d never gotten very far at it. “But I wouldn’t have killed her.” 

 

Regina wavers for a moment before she’s on the offensive again. “You’ve been lying to us all. You stole the dagger from me.” 

 

“Emma _asked_ me to,” Robin explains, exasperated. 

 

Regina looks stricken. “She didn’t…she doesn’t even know you. Why would she trust you with…”

 

“She wanted you to be happy.” Robin ventures an outstretched hand and Regina recoils from it. “She was very, very focused on that.” 

 

Regina’s lips purse together. Rumple says, “The reason why she became the Dark One. It becomes an obsession, if you aren’t careful. I murdered a half dozen men to keep Bae safe in my first day as the Dark One, and many more after that.” 

 

“So this is just a fixation to free herself from.” The petty part of him that he thought he’d quashed is relieved at that confirmation. When he isn’t careful, sometimes he wonders… _no_.

 

“It’s a pre-existing obsession,” Regina murmurs, and her eyes are soft and sad. “Emma spent six weeks doing little but trying to find my happy ending before that Chernabog showed up.”

 

When her eyes flicker back to Robin, it’s with a hollowed-out stare, as though the softness is reserved only for Emma now. “You should have told me,” she says, and Robin gets the sense of something closing from him within her in that moment.

 

* * *

 

Roland is sent to Snow and David’s loft for the time being, and David glowers at him from the desk for most of the night before he gets a phone call that has him slipping out of the station. Robin lies down on his cot, head pounding, and struggles to parse everything that’s happened until now.

 

_Zelena and Hook. Dead._ Regina and David had talked about a burial at sea for Hook, quick and small. Zelena hadn’t even had a funeral, just Regina setting up another coffin in her family crypt. _Regina_. She doesn’t seem inclined to forgive his betrayal anytime soon, but it’s the way she talks about Emma even now that has him wondering if this is the end. _Emma_. Missing, murderous, with possession of her dagger. Who knows if they’ll ever see her–

 

“What did you do to yourself?” Emma demands, and Robin jerks up in his cot. Emma waves her hand over his bruises, healing them in an easy instant. “Did you piss Regina off?” 

 

“ _You_ pissed Regina off,” Robin echoes, eyes fixed on the dagger still bloody in her hand. If he can grab it, he might be able to fix…

 

“Don’t even think about it,” Emma warns him. Her eyes flash. “I trusted you with it and you fucked that up, and now…” She bites her lip and sits heavily on the bed. “Is he dead?” 

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Oh.” She leans back against the wall, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “Oh,” she repeats, touching the dagger. “It hurt more last time.” But her breath is shaky and she’s blinking a bit too often to be completely unfazed. “Everything feels kind of…disjointed, now. Like if there’s no one to hurt over it then what’s the point?” She laughs and it comes out with a gulp, somewhere between amusement and tears, and Emma’s head droops forward to land on her knees.

 

She whispers, “Tell me Henry hasn’t seen me like this.” 

 

“Not that I’ve heard.” He can’t imagine what it would be like for the boy to have seen Emma as Regina had, bloody and cackling and close to falling apart.

 

“I wish I’d died.” She looks so young like this, blonde hair falling over her knees and her chin squashed against them like a child’s. The only tell that she’s something more is the dagger she’s still wielding between her fingers, crusted over with blood and with her name etched across it. “I’d rather be a martyr than have them hate me.” 

 

“Henry doesn’t hate you,” Regina murmurs, and they both look up in surprise. She’s sitting at the sheriff’s desk, legs crossed and the box that had held the sorcerer on her lap. She raises an eyebrow at them. “You aren’t the only one who can avoid detection with magic, Emma.” 

 

Emma is frozen in place. The dagger clatters to the floor from her hands and she doesn’t seem to notice. Regina says again, “Your parents and Henry still love you. They want nothing more than to save you from this.” 

 

“Save me,” Emma repeats. “I’m doing fine.” Fear and defiance flit over her face as one, each with a stubbornness that has Robin’s blood burning cold.

 

Regina shakes her head. “No, you aren't.” She walks over to them, unlocking the cell door, and Robin glances once at the dagger on the floor and gets a minute shake of Regina’s head in response. Emma raises her face to Regina. “Look at you, dear,” Regina whispers. “My dear Emma.” She strokes three fingers across the length of Emma’s face, along her jaw and down to her chin in a gentle caress. Emma lets out a sound like a prolonged sob, choking and gasping with restrained emotion at the touch.

 

Robin looks down, feeling very much like he’s intruding in his own prison cell. 

 

“I didn’t want you to see me, either,” Emma says in a whisper. Words escape in a torrent of humanity, the Dark One exposed in a way Robin hasn't seen before. “I know you tried…you did everything you could to keep me from becoming this. I never wanted to let you down. I just wanted you to be happy. You’re happy, aren’t you?” 

 

She leans forward into Regina’s touch. “I didn’t mean for you to be angry with Robin. I’ll do anything to make you happy.” It’s a plea or a threat or maybe both, and Regina’s eyes narrow at it, but she doesn’t let go of Emma.

 

“Emma,” she sighs, touching her fingers to Emma’s lips to quiet her. “I’m much more concerned with _your_ happy ending right now than my own.” 

 

“Hook said I was his.” She laughs, suddenly delighted at the irony. “I guess I was just his ending.” Regina gives her a long look and she flushes. “Sorry.” 

 

There’s a twitchiness to Emma around Regina, a discomfort like she’s about to start running and doesn’t know which direction to go. She doesn’t comment when Regina reaches down and lifts the dagger, tracing the edges of the blade. She just twitches some more. “Are you…are you going to use it?” she asks, her voice small.

 

Regina sounds distant as she stares at the dagger. “You killed my sister,” she says. “Why?”

 

“I thought you wanted it,” Emma says, a hint of defiance leaking through, and Regina picks up her head and stares at Emma with dawning horror as though she’s finally beginning to understand. 

 

* * *

 

Regina keeps the dagger and Emma lurks behind her, a dark shadow as the three of them head to the mansion. “You’re sure Henry isn’t there,” Emma repeats for the third time tonight, and Regina reaches behind her so their hands tangle reassuringly. 

 

“Henry is with your parents. I sent him there when I knew I’d be seeing you tonight.” 

 

Robin lags behind a little, watching Emma’s hand tighten around Regina’s. “How did you know I’d come?” 

 

“With you, Emma?” There’s a wry smile on Regina's face and darkness behind it that darkens golden brown eyes to grey shadows. “I always know.”

 

Emma’s free hand winds around their entangled fingers and Robin watches, fascinated and afraid at the way the Dark One pallor fades from the skin of Emma’s hands where they touch Regina. It’s easy to pretend it had never happened in the dark, but he’s beginning to wonder what purpose there is in pretending.

 

They reach the mansion and move into the hall before Regina takes the dagger out of its sheath, sets it down, and orders, “Stay in this house tonight. Can you do that?” 

 

Rebellion gleams in Emma’s eyes, dark and dangerous, and she says, “Henry won’t come here?” 

 

“I swear to you,” Regina says, “I will make sure Henry doesn’t see you.” Emma nods shakily. Regina turns to Robin and he nearly flinches at the force of her gaze. He hadn’t even known that she’d remembered he was here. “Let’s go to bed, Robin.” 

 

Emma smiles, tentative and bright, and Robin watches her just long enough to see it fade into longing instead. 

 

He follows Regina up the stairs, disconcerted by the one-eighty in her attention. He’d thought…they were dead in the water, at the least, and that he’d lost even a chance at friendship at the most. Regina’s barely noticed his existence since the day Emma had vanished, and she’s noticed him even less since she’d reappeared. 

 

But now she’s guiding him by the wrist through her room, into the bathroom, and she locks the door and turns on the shower. _This is it, then?_ All it had taken for them to be a _couple_ is Emma Swan back home again. He leans in for a kiss and Regina takes a step forward to him, slow with clear intentions and whispers fiercely, “Tell me everything about Emma.”

 

He may have contracted whiplash. “Uh.” 

 

“How long has she been like…like _this_? How many people has she killed?” Regina is pacing up and down along the length of the shower. Her perfectly coifed hair is beginning to frizz up and she runs a frustrated hand through it. “This has to be something she can come back from. I won’t allow–“ She sits down on top of the covered toilet seat, her face in her hands. “Please tell me she’s not as bad as I was.” 

 

“I…” He’s inclined to say _worse_ but he hadn’t actually known the Evil Queen. She’d been someone whispered about in taverns and fled from on the road, but he’d only ever known Regina as cranky and irritable and more human than Emma is now. “I don’t know. She doesn’t seem to…think twice about killing anyone in her way.”

 

Regina scrubs at her face with frantic energy, as though she thinks that this somehow will be effective with their new situation. “I swore that Gold would never make Emma a monster, but somehow he managed, didn’t he?” 

 

“She’s different around you,” Robin says, and maybe it’s a mistake to bring it up. Maybe he shouldn’t be addressing the elephant in the room, except that Regina is in pain and he does love her regardless of where her attentions are pointed now. It’s the right thing to do. The _honorable_ thing. 

 

And really, his code of honor hasn’t been working out for him lately, and he’s beginning to think it’s a moot point except that Regina looks up, suddenly awash with hope, and he can’t deny her that. “Is she really?” She stands abruptly, combing down her hair and fluffing it. “And she’s been so adamant about Henry not seeing her. We can get her out of this.” She looks at him with so much ferocious love on her face that he has to remind himself forcefully that it isn’t for him. “We just need to get her away from magic.” 

 

* * *

 

Regina sits down beside Emma where Emma’s hunched over on the couch, glowering at the television, and Emma’s too busy staring at Regina’s face as she speaks to notice when Regina waves her hand and casts her spell.

 

“One of Mal’s,” she says as Robin lifts Emma up into his arms. “It won’t last long. Should be enough for what we need, though.” She runs the back of one finger against the side of Emma’s neck, her eyes sorrowful as she tucks the dagger into her sheath again. Emma hadn’t touched it while they’d been upstairs. Emma _trusts_ Regina, even like this, and Robin has an uneasy suspicion that their next move may destroy that fragile trust.

 

Regina sits with Emma in the backseat, tensing as they cross over to the town line, and Emma immediately begins to convulse. “Stop the car!” Regina orders, and Robin pulls to a halt. She drags Emma from the car as Emma twitches, ragged screams tearing themselves from her throat, and Robin clambers out of the car to help her hold Emma steady.

 

Regina slaps Emma’s cheeks and commands, “Emma, _wake up_!” 

 

Emma’s eyes fly open. They’re icy blue and Robin recoils. “What…” She’s wild and frightened and lost and her knees are buckling, only Robin supporting her. “What did you do to me?” 

 

“We’re over the town line,” Regina says soothingly, cupping Emma’s chin in her hands and guiding her up to face her.

 

“You cut me off from my source.” Emma wrenches herself out of their arms and stumbles to the ground, retching. Regina crouches beside her, sweeping Emma’s hair out of her face. “Oh, god,” Emma moans. “I can’t do this now. I can’t _be_ this… _thing_ without magic.” She vomits one last time and then yanks her hair free of Regina, coiling up tightly like a snake on the ground as she crouches opposite her. “How could you do this to me?” 

 

Regina lets out a pained exhale, so much empathy on her face that they both look near tears at the exchange. Robin hasn’t seen Regina like this, terrified and helpless and firm all the same, not since the Shattered Sight curse had threatened to turn her back into the Evil Queen. And now she’s equally terrified at betraying Emma. “I know, Emma. I know. I just…I think you need a break from magic while we figure this out.” 

 

“You couldn’t have slapped on that fucking bracelet?” Emma sounds frantic, lost and trapped as she trembles on the ground like a cornered beast, and Robin remembers to get his crossbow at last.

 

“You destroyed that bracelet,” Regina says evenly. “When you murdered my sister.” 

 

“I did that for you!” She’s almost childlike in her terror, and for a moment Robin can forget that she’s the Dark One and not a caged girl. “I did it all for you! Regina, I trusted you!”

 

“I know,” Regina whispers, and she’s already beginning to falter. “And I know what you’re going through better than anyone, but you need some space to–“ 

 

There’s a crackle of lightning around them and Emma raises her head to meet it. Her face is frighteningly bright, shining with hope as electricity sparks around them. A burst of lightning explodes at Regina as Robin shouts and Regina drops to the ground, Emma suddenly up and hovering over her. 

 

“What did you do?” he says hoarsely, raising the crossbow and charging at her.

 

Emma stares at him with an empty gaze, pushing him aside with more strength than she should be capable of in this land, the land without magic- and he’s blasted with equal force a moment later, his skin crackling with the burn- and she hauls Regina into her arms with gentleness, draping her over her arm so her head can loll against Emma’s shoulder. 

 

Robin can’t see the town line anymore, can’t see a way back inside Storybrooke, and Emma is holding the Snow Queen’s scroll in her hand with smug victory. She says, “Seeya,” and grins, madness glinting in her eyes, and with a final step, she vanishes into thin air with Regina.

 

* * *

 

Emma’s lightning storm had turned his minivan into a hollowed-out husk, but it’s still shelter, and he huddles in there and sleeps all night until there’s a rapping on the door and Regina pokes her head into the car. “Robin.” 

 

“Regina!” He jolts, reaching for her. “Are you all right? I didn’t know what she’d do to you–“ 

 

“I’m fine. She took me home.” She glances in the direction of what must be the town line and ducks into the car. “And…” She reaches into her chest, unbothered at the way he flinches, and plucks out her heart like she might a flower in the woods. “She didn’t do anything,” Regina says, eyeing it for a moment. Her heart is bright red except for a sickly-looking blue-black cut that runs the length of it, disfiguring the whole organ like a fault line.

 

Regina presses the heart back into her chest and tugs him up. “Come. We don’t have much time.”

 

Emma’s hovering behind the line when they cross it, and Regina gives her a hard look. “Emma, we need to talk.”

 

“Yeah?” There’s a reckless bent to her now, less caution than there’d been before they’d taken her over the town line. Emma’s Regina filter is off now, no longer reining her in, and she’s smiling now like she has nothing to lose. “What are you going to do, turn me into your personal slave?” She nods at the dagger. “You could have done _that_ all along.” 

 

Regina sighs, exasperated. “I’m not going to take away your free will. Trust me on that.” 

 

Emma sneers at her and sneers and sneers in the face of Regina’s unflappable firmness until she finally bends. “Thanks,” she mutters.

 

“But-“ Regina takes a step forward and straightens, impeccably a queen. “You have to learn to control yourself. It’s why I wanted you over the town line.” She’s a teacher now, too, one who has Emma’s head tilting up with reluctant attention. “No more acting out.” 

 

“Is that what you call this?” Emma laughs bitterly. “I’m just trying to…it’s who I _am_ now, Regina. I tried to be a hero and now I’m going to break everyone’s heart. And you know what?” She leans forward, too close to Regina, and Regina is silent and hungry-eyed in an instant. “I get you now. I really do. I finally feel like I’m in _control_. Like I…like I’m unstoppable. I don’t know why you ever gave it up.”

 

“Oh,” Regina says, dizzy, and a fleeting look of victory flashes onto Emma’s face. “Henry,” she manages, and Emma's victory vanishes along with Regina’s hunger. “Emma, I have to be here for Henry.”

 

“Right,” Emma says. Her eyes flicker with resentment and then shame, one chasing the other off her face, and she takes a step back. “I promised you a happy ending. I’m going to make sure you get it.” 

 

Regina reaches out with one hand, curling her fingers so her knuckles brush Emma’s hair behind her ears. Emma is undone in an instant, the Dark One tamed with the Evil Queen’s hand. “And what about you?”

 

“I’m good at surviving. Whatever the hell I am,” Emma says, and twists around to lead them back to Regina’s car.

 

* * *

 

There are murmurs when they walk through the town, distrustful gazes pointed toward Emma and toward Regina and even toward Robin, who trails behind the two of them as they stand close, their hands together as though bound by invisible thread.

 

He doesn’t remember them being this starved for contact before the sacrifice, but now Regina rarely lets go of Emma and Emma is in a constant incline toward Regina, desperate to drink in her presence. If they’d been inseparable in New York, the sacrifice had compounded that into aching need.

 

_It’s the old paradox,_ Regina had said last night in the bathroom. _What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?_ She’d been talking about their mission then, Regina just stubborn enough to endure an Emma who will never escape the darkness; but Robin thinks instead of the two of them, still connected in the face of the curse of the Dark One.  _Unstoppable. But an immovable object._

 

And on they move, past dark glares and drawn weapons, Regina’s fingers trailing up and down the back of Emma’s hand. They pause at Granny’s and Granny cocks her crossbow, eyes narrowed, and she’s about to say something when Snow tears past her to wrap her arms around Emma.

 

“Emma!” Emma closes her eyes and Regina moves a suddenly stiff hand to her back. “Oh, Emma, we’ve been so worried!” 

 

“Mom.” Emma breathes it like a death rattle. She still hasn’t lifted her arms to return the hug, but Snow seems to take that as her cue to hold Emma tighter.

 

“We’re going to save you,” she says firmly. “We’ve been searching and searching for Merlin and we’re going to find a way to lift this–“ She’s torn from Emma with a whirlwind of force, hurled against a mailbox and onto the ground, and Emma stands still, her eyes gleaming that unnatural color as she towers over her mother. 

 

“No,” she says, and each word emerges as though she’s ripping them forcibly from her throat, leaving gouges along the way. Regina snaps her name and she ignores it. “No saving. This is how I’m going to save all of you.” Snow gapes up at her from where she’s slumped over on the ground.

 

Regina says, “Emma, for fucks’ sake.” It’s startling from her mouth and even Emma barks out a laugh at it.

 

“Come on, Regina. We both know that villains always win here.” She nods down at herself, her lip curling into a snarl. “Even the lily-white savior loses in the end.” 

 

“You didn’t _lose_ ,” Regina says calmly. “You saved the whole town. You gave me my…” She reaches for Robin and squeezes his hand, her own half-limp as she does. Emma watches them with hunger and dissatisfaction at once. “My happy ending. You did a good and noble thing and it’s twisted you into something so much less than you deserve. But it isn’t the end.”

 

“So…what? Now I’m _less_?” Thunder sounds in the distance and Emma’s skin blurs, ever so faintly, scaling over with light gold.

 

Regina gives her an aggrieved sigh. “Don’t be an idiot, Emma.”

 

They’re both crackling with enough energy that Robin’s sure that this is all about to explode, whatever leverage they’d had long gone; and then behind them, there’s the sound of the fairies emerging from their church and Blue striding toward them. Emma and Regina don’t notice. Emma swings out with a punch that Regina blocks, catching Emma’s wrist and twisting it before she punches her right back, knocking her into the gate in front of Granny’s. 

 

Emma wipes the blood off on her sleeve. “Really, Regina?” 

 

“Really, Emma?” Regina mocks, her eyes bright with fire and fear- fear _for_ Emma, not of Emma. They’re still drawn to each other even when they’re punching each other in the face. (It may be time to concede defeat, Robin reflects.) Emma is panting where she is against the wall and Regina is leaning in, a smirk creeping its way along her face, and Robin doesn’t know if they’re going to kiss or kill each other.

 

And that’s when Blue steps forward with a sharp  _what’s going on here?_ and she’s hurling fairy dust at Regina, immobilizing her, and only then must she have gleaned who it is she’d been defending. And Blue doesn’t know, doesn’t _understand_ \- no one does, not Snow on the ground or Granny or any of the townspeople gathered around now- not until Emma is whirling forward and snapping Blue's neck as easily as she would her fingers.

 

There’s an eruption of light and then the black magic that had taken Emma in the first place is snaking out of her and _devouring_ Blue, blotting her out with inky black as though she’d never been standing there. She glows bright blue, a faint outline against the darkness, and then fades.

 

Emma says, her tone low as she glares around at her gaping audience, “You don’t _touch_ Regina,” and she disappears in a puff of smoke. Snow lets out a sob and Regina pulls herself free from the fairy dust and stumbles to her. 

 

Robin departs from the crowd and breaks into a jog toward the house.

 

* * *

 

Emma is curled up on the couch in the study when he pushes the door open, her lip still open and bleeding onto the white fabric. “Regina’s going to kill you,” he comments. 

 

He’s talking about the couch but Emma says dully, “Probably,” and doesn’t mean the couch at all. She closes her eyes. “Do you have the dagger?” He shakes his head and she says without opening her eyes, “You should hold onto the dagger when you’re around me.”

 

“I’m Regina’s happy ending, remember?” he says it unconvincingly and manages a laugh. “You’re not going to hurt me.” 

 

“You’d be surprised.” Emma’s eyes are empty, and she doesn’t make any threats about Regina being happy this time. She hasn’t said anything at all about it to him since she’d first seen Regina again. “There’s something else,” she admits, winding one hand around her waist protectively.

 

“You’re in love with Regina,” he says.

 

“I’m in love with–” she begins at the same time, and then stares at him in startled displeasure. “You knew?” 

 

“The whole universe knew, Emma.” He sighs. “It may have taken me some time, but you weren’t subtle about it.” 

 

“Oh.” She stares down at the couch beneath her. “It’s…it’s really fucking terrible.”

 

“Perhaps.” If this is a contest for Regina’s heart, Emma clearly doesn’t grasp that he’s already lost it- had lost it with Regina still in his arms, gazing in horror at a whirlwind of blackness taking Emma from her. He won’t deceive himself into believing he has a chance anymore, not when there’s a fault line down Regina’s heart and Emma Swan loves her back.

 

And yet none of this makes an iota of sense, not with the Emma he’s seen over the past couple of weeks. “Why have you been so adamant about me making her happy, then? Why haven’t you just…killed me and been done with it?”

 

Emma says, her voice rough, “I want her to have what she wants,” and yes, he does remember the Dark One selfless once. He remembers a wand and Rumplestiltskin in the woods with a bow that never misses and beside him in the dirt, a girl he’d refused to look at. He remembers tales of true love’s kiss that can never quite lift the curse of the Dark One but can ease it away, bit by bit, and uncover the scarred soul beneath.

 

And Emma looks miserable and afraid and uncertain, only a woman in love instead of something monstrous from the beginning of time, and Robin knows he should be afraid. His chances of survival now depend only on how long Emma can cling to whatever lightness there is in her love, and he’s heard how impatient she’d been even before she’d become the Dark One. 

 

There’s a dull roar from the distance, voices raised within it, and Emma stands up, the corner of her mouth curling into a sneer as the brooding woman fades once more. “Time to go face an angry mob,” she says gaily, and stalks out of the room as Robin follows.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for all the wonderful feedback! It's been super encouraging and helpful (and a special shout out to shawn for doing a lot of the heavy lifting with the plotty stuff) and I appreciate it muchly. <3 
> 
> I'm trying to finish this fic by the end of the week but I make no promises! And I will be replying to comments soon- it's a struggle to keep my eyes open rn but I'm gonna go have some cereal and try to fool myself into thinking it's morning. OR SOMETHING. Hope you enjoyed and I'd love to hear from you if you can spare some feedback! :)


	3. Chapter 3

Snow talks down the mob of townspeople while Regina lurks behind her, throwing menacing glares at anyone who tries to step any closer to the porch. “I once saved Regina from an angry mob,” Emma says wistfully. “Back when I had a place here.”

 

They’re standing by an open window in the study, watching as the crowd dissipates. Emma had nearly cut down one of the dwarves before her mother had appeared, and then she’d hastily retreated into the house.

 

_I don’t want her to remember me like this,_ she’d muttered, forehead pressed to the window. _I don’t want to be here at all_.

 

She stays only because Regina had ordered it, just as she’ll only concede to seeing Regina. Regina has an intimate understanding of what Emma’s going through now, and so it’s only Regina of her loved ones whom she’ll trust with this darkest piece of her.

 

“Where would you go if you weren’t here?” Robin ventures. Being around Emma now is like being trapped in a cage with a venomous serpent, easily overlooked but with the constant awareness that nothing stands between him and death. And with Emma’s most recent revelation, he can feel himself deeper and deeper in danger. “Where were you until now?” 

 

“I tried once to cross realms. Early on. Back when I wasn’t fully paired with the darkness.” 

 

“What happened?”

 

She shrugs. “I started killing people.” 

 

“Ah.” She’d mentioned a trip to find Merlin early on and had shrugged off the murders then, too. He doesn’t comment on that. “And where were you the rest of the time?” 

 

“In darkness.” Emma wraps her arms around herself, staring out the window at Snow and Regina. Regina says, _I told you not to come see her._  Snow launches herself into Regina’s arms and holds her tight as she sobs into her shoulder. “I couldn't see anything. There were just…whispers.” 

 

“What did they tell you?” He’s never had any real experience with darkness, he’s coming to understand. He’d thought himself hopeless once, a self-serving thief who’d wronged those who hadn’t deserved it, but it pales in comparison to the kind of true evil Emma’s immersed in now.

 

She smiles, her eyes bright with false laughter, and says, “To destroy. To hate. To sow seeds of chaos. You know, just girly things.” She takes a step toward him and he backs up unconsciously. She smirks menacingly, leaning in. “What do you think, we chatted about the weather? I came out of that darkness all wrong. I came out wanting to be feared. I wanted to be _dead_. But now…I don’t see why I can’t just be strong instead.” 

 

“Strong would mean showing some restraint,” Regina says irritably, entering the room at last. Emma jumps back from Robin. Regina’s gaze sweeps over the room. “Did you get blood on my couch?” 

 

“Sorry,” Emma mumbles.

 

Regina scowls at her, waving a hand over the couch until the spots fade. “Sit,” she orders. Emma sits. Regina glares again, pacing with tiny steps as though she can’t quite get her bearings here. “You’re not leaving this house again,” she decides. “Not even outdoors. If I can’t trust you not to murder anyone who annoys you, I can’t trust you out there at all.” 

 

“Are you…” Emma squints at her, shrinking back under her disapproving stare. “Are you _grounding_ me?” 

 

“Grounding, house arrest, whatever you want to call it.” Regina curls her fingers into fists. “I won’t let you do this to yourself.” 

 

“To myself,” Emma echoes, rolling her eyes.

 

“I don’t give a damn about Blue or Hook.” Regina leaves Zelena out of that list and Robin doesn’t want to think about that. Thinking about Zelena and the baby means acknowledging just how he feels about all of it- regret or relief or something equally terrible- and he’d rather spend the rest of his life with the Dark One tossing him around than parse _that_. 

 

“But,” Regina says, “You do.”

 

Emma scoffs. “Please. Don’t give me that shit. You’re saving me from myself now? I’m not a _child._ I can handle this just fine.” She rises, heading for the door to the study.

 

“You’ve been doing a bang-up job until now!” Regina calls after her, but Emma’s already stomping her way up the stairs, and she slams the door to the guest room hard enough to shake the house.

 

Robin rubs the scruff of his beard. “I think I just had a preview of Roland’s teenage years. No idea how I’m going to handle that alone.” 

 

Regina laughs tiredly. “Alone?” she ventures, and he hears something like resignation, something like relief.

 

“Regina.” He doesn’t know how to convey this in words, the uselessness of _soulmates_ when there’s someone out there who means so much more to her. They’ve had road bumps and they’ve had mountains between them; yet now that they’re facing mountains together, they’re suddenly even more apart. 

 

And somehow Regina seems to glean all of this from his sigh- because _soulmates,_ right- and she inclines her head, flushing for a moment before she sinks down onto the couch where Emma had been sitting. “We’ve made it almost a full day with the Dark One. Two casualties, her mother is falling apart, and we were hit by lightning in a land where magic isn’t supposed to work. This is manageable.” She laughs, wry with a hint of desperation, and Robin aches with compassion for her. “How the hell am I supposed to do this for the rest of my life?”

 

“You don’t have to,” Robin points out. She stares at him as though he’s lost his mind. “You still have the dagger. And you can…she wants to leave, you know. If you order her to-”

 

“I won’t. I can’t take away…” She shakes her head. “You saw her when she didn't feel in control. I killed people for far less when I was queen. When you're so determined to be strong...to never show weakness..." Her voice is thoughtful and resigned. "She isn't a leashed pet and I won't treat her like one." 

 

“She’s a murderer.” He remembers the casual way Emma had appeared at the bar one night, killing everyone around him just because she could. Emma around Regina is better restrained, but Emma without her is terrifying. 

 

“ _I’m_ a murderer,” Regina points out. He still can’t think of her in that way, and his head aches when he contemplates it.

 

“You don’t owe her this, no matter what she gave up for you.” 

 

“I owe her _everything_.” Regina’s voice is hoarse, close to tears, and he sits down beside her on the couch, patting her arm and feeling uncomfortable about it. “There are…I hurt so many people in my life. And I think I could justify them all- traitors, trespassers, and people who deserved much worse- but not Emma. Emma remains the one great casualty of my curse. And still?” She fiddles with the fold of her shirt, untucked under her jacket. “She still _advocated_ for me after it was broken. She wanted to be my _friend,_ Robin.” 

 

Now she is crying, wet-eyed even though the tears won’t spill, and when he reaches for her she stands up and walks to the window instead. “Emma Swan gave up every part of herself to preserve my happy ending, and you want me to give up on her now?” Her gaze is cutting when she turns back to him, red-eyed and coldly disbelieving, and he swallows and feels inconsequential beneath it. “Who saves the savior, Robin? If it isn’t me, then who?” 

 

He can imagine the Dark One destroying both women, Emma a shadow of her former self and Regina broken beneath it; and he can imagine an Emma who would rather die than see Regina ruined by her. And he knows that none of that will matter to Regina right now. “Only you,” he says, resigned.

 

“Only me,” she agrees, turning back to the window. “So I’m going to–“ She stops, frowning.

 

“Regina?” 

 

“Someone’s on the grounds,” she says, eyes wide, and vanishes in a cloud of violet smoke.

 

* * *

 

He runs out after her, creeping through the garden as best as he can, and she holds up a finger where she’s crouching at a corner. “I saw someone run into the yard,” she whispers. 

 

The backyard is empty, as far as Robin can see on the ground, but he’s lived in the woods for long enough for his eyes to have sharpened to nature around him. He raises his eyes to the trees just as the guest room window opens and Emma barks out, “Who’s out there?” Her eyes are paler than Robin’s ever seen them- because _Regina’s safety_ , not because someone is trying to get a blow in at the Dark One, Robin knows at once- and she hurls out a bolt of lightning at the tree by her window. 

 

There’s a muffled moan of pain and then a figure moves between the branches, struggling with a hood over their head, and Emma blurs and reappears in the tree. “No one goes near this house,” she threatens, hurling a punch at the– _boy, it’s a boy,_ Robin suddenly understands, but Emma doesn’t, Emma doesn’t see who it could be, and Regina is staring up at them like she still hasn’t connected the dots. 

 

“Emma!” he shouts, and Emma ignores him, a hand outstretched toward the boy as energy travels between them and he chokes for breath. “Emma, no!"

 

“No one hurts Regina,” she snarls, shoving him, and he’s illuminated in the patio lights as he tumbles in midair, bright enough for the others to see him as his hood falls back and Henry screams at last.

 

Regina lets out an inhuman wail that might’ve been his name and she’s stumbling forward in an instant. “Henry?” Emma whispers. Regina stops his fall with magic and he lands in her arms so they both stumble to the patio floor, Henry still choking for breath and half his face already bright red with the burn of magic. “Henry?” Emma repeats, her face deathly pale.

 

He stares up at her, framed in the branches above him, and his eyes shutter closed. “I just wanted to see you,” he says faintly.

 

“Call an ambulance!” Regina snaps at Robin, and Robin races to the door.

 

* * *

 

Henry is going to be fine.

 

Whale is attempting to treat some of the swelling from Emma’s magic-powered punch and Rumple has a salve that soothes the burns. There’s still a long, terrible-looking mark where the blast had struck him on the side of his face, and Whale predicts a terrible scar. “If you hadn’t been there to catch him, he’d be dead,” Whale says, and no one misses the significant glare he'd tossed at Emma before looking away.

 

Emma stands behind them, her face grey like death and her arms wrapped around herself, but her eyes are fixed on Henry, asleep on the hospital bed. Regina hasn’t turned once to see her, and she doesn’t until Whale leaves the room. “Close the curtain, Robin,” she says, her voice ice cold. 

 

Emma doesn’t budge, not until Robin is pulling the curtain around the bed area and she takes a step forward to be within it. Her skin is getting greyer now, down to her throat and the hands clenched into fists at her sides, and she’s never looked more like the Dark One.

 

Regina shifts at last, taking a single step forward toward Emma. “You nearly killed my son,” she hisses, the gentleness gone from her voice.

 

Emma says nothing. Her eyes still haven’t moved from Henry, and Regina says louder, “You nearly _killed_ my _son_.”

 

Emma opens her mouth and then closes it. 

 

"Get out," Regina orders, and Emma finally turns to stare at her. 

 

"I can't leave him," she whispers helplessly. "I never meant to—"

 

"Well, you did." Regina stalks to her. "I don't need your protection. I don't _want_ your protection.” There’s no more compassion in her eyes, not since the moment that Henry had fallen. “All you’ve done is hurt my family. Wasn’t one child enough?”

 

Emma recoils, her eyes filling up with tears. “Regina, _no_. I didn’t see him. I barely even knew what I was…” She wrings her hands. “Everything I do feels so twisted now, like…oh god.” She’s dry-sobbing now, taking huge gulping breaths and reaching for Regina, and Regina yanks herself away from her. “I don’t know how to fight this. I don’t know how to make _good_ things anymore.” 

 

“Then go _away,_ ” Regina snarls, and Robin sees that her hands are shaking. “Get out of my life.” Emma looks as though she’s been slapped. “No one hurts my son and–“ 

 

“And what?” Emma demands through heaving gasps. “And you never poisoned him? And you didn’t try to…Regina, you know I would never do it intentionally! I only wanted to save you! I tried...” She shakes her head, choking on the words. “I wanted you to have your happy ending!” 

 

“It was a _fucking_  terrible idea!” Regina shoots back. “It was…stupid, and selfless, and…do I look happy? Did you think I’d be happy when you were like this?” 

 

Emma gapes at her. Regina looks wild like this, furious and helpless and lost, and the two women are close enough to hug. But they don’t. _We never even hugged_ , Emma had said mournfully one night when she’d come to watch over Regina, and Robin hadn’t known how to respond to it then. He doesn’t know what to do now except stand watch over the hospital bed and its slumbering occupant. 

 

“I didn’t ask you to sacrifice yourself for me,” Regina says fiercely. “You didn’t give me a happy ending, you sucked… _so much_ from my life. Do you have any what it was like? What you did to–“ She tears out her heart in an instant, quick and furious, and Emma stares at the fault line across it with a look that Robin can’t decipher. The fault line is deeper now, sinking into the red of the heart, and it looks very much like a broken heart. Regina shoves it back into her chest unceremoniously, choking at the sensation of it. “And now you’re back and it’s all even worse.”

 

Emma says, dull and shivering. “You have no idea what it’s like.” 

 

“I could have handled it! Don’t you know who I _was_?” Regina demands. “I spend all my time fighting myself. I could have…I would have…”

 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Emma says, her voice hard. “And I would do it again! I would sacrifice myself a thousand times if it meant keeping you from ever becoming like this.” Regina is shaking her head and Emma seizes her arms, holds them tight, and Regina doesn’t pull away this time. “If you knew how I feel, _all the time_ , and it’s all so fucked up except when–“ 

 

In a second’s movement, she’s kissing Regina like she’s on fire, her hands squeezing tighter as Regina lets out a startled sound. And then Regina breathes out a sigh and her hands come up to cradle Emma’s face, Emma’s fingers still curled around her arms, and they’re both unraveling now, softness layering their movements as the stiffness and tension fades. Robin looks down at Henry’s face and does his best to filter out soft sighs and swallowed murmurs. (He can accept this without _watching_ it.)

 

And then they stop abruptly and Robin looks up, sees Regina backing away from Emma with a look of absolute despair on her face. “Please,” she begs, and the greyness has faded from Emma’s face for the time being only to be replaced with the white of sheer terror. “Please leave.” 

 

Emma leaves.

 

Regina sags, stumbling over to Henry, and she sits down beside him with her hand wrapped around Henry's. “I’m sorry,” she says. 

 

It takes a moment before Robin realizes that it’s directed to him. “As am I,” he admits. But now is no time to be petty, not over his loss and her pain and whatever might happen next. “Someone should go after her. There’s no telling what she might do.” Emma with Regina around is dangerous. Emma without Regina around is dangerous. But Emma rejected by both Regina and Henry might be the most dangerous version of this Dark One of all. 

 

Regina nods in jerky bobs and he stands. “Wait,” she says, and he can’t stop the flicker of hope that maybe he’s been wrong about this all along, that they’re still salvageable even after Emma. _Foolish, self-indulgent_ , he tells himself, because Regina is holding out the dagger instead. “You’ll need this.” 

 

“Are you sure?” 

 

“No,” she says flatly, and her eyes are dark with agonized indecision. One hand moves to touch her lips. “No, I’m not sure.” 

 

* * *

 

Emma is standing in the center of town when he finds her. It’s the spot where the darkness had first taken her, where she’d waved a dagger and Regina had screamed her name and no one else could ever fight against that kind of darkness. “Emma,” he murmurs. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, I beg you to reconsider.”

 

She turns to watch him and she seems…quiet, suddenly. Peaceful. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m not going to hurt anyone else.” Her eyes flicker down to the dagger in his hand and he tenses, preparing for a fight. “Give me that.” 

 

“Really?” he says, incredulous.

 

“Regina’s right,” Emma says, taking a step toward him. “Not about her handling this curse, but the rest…I never should have come back here. I should have let them all think I was dead. All I’ve done is brought pain to everyone I love.” Her smile is a farce, the corners of it faltering as she struggles to bring them up. “So now I’m going to let go. And I don’t want to be called back.” She holds out her hand. “My dagger, Robin.”

 

“Do you expect us to trust you with it? Do _you_ trust yourself with it?” And he can’t believe he’s saying this, but… “You can’t leave yet. It’ll break Regina’s heart.” 

 

“Didn’t you see?” Emma laughs brokenly. “I already did that.” She licks her lips. “You don’t have to worry about what I’ll do next. I’m not going to hurt anyone ever again.” 

 

Her words trigger something within him, a rising suspicion that he doesn’t want to consider. “What are you planning, Emma?” 

 

She ignores him. “Tell Henry and Regina…my parents…tell them I love them. And I’m so sorry.” She’s raising her hands and Robin can see something opening over her, a portal of swirling energy. He can hear the whispering from it, like a thousand vicious voices who have him wanting to cower under his bed like he’s three years old again. Emma fixes her gaze on him. “You’d better make sure she’s happy, okay? She’s worked too hard to lose this. She’s…” She smiles again, and this time it’s real. “Soulmates, right? She’ll be okay.” 

 

“No. No!” He squeezes his hand around the dagger as her eyes fix onto it, and in a last fit of desperation– and he doesn’t want her here, he _doesn’t_ , but Regina does so deeply and she’s going to remember that soon and he loves her, of course he does– he holds it up and orders her, “I command you not to go!”

 

She laughs, wild and giddy, and suddenly she’s right in front of him, closing her fingers on the blade of the dagger until her hand is bloody around it as she tosses it into the air and catches it by the hilt. “Robin,” she says, lifting her face to the portal above her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

And with a final burst of energy, she plunges the dagger into her chest.

 

* * *

 

Robin is frozen in place, stunned into inaction- but what _can_ he do? He remembers racing toward Regina as the same black tendrils had wound around her and being thrown back. Now, he’s hurtled backward by his proximity as they fly out of the place where Emma had stabbed herself, winding around her faster and faster as they’re drawn upward, back into the portal where they’d come. He can barely see Emma inside it, a red bloodstain spreading across her chest, her head lolling as only the force of the darkness keeps her still standing. 

 

“Emma!” he shouts, and he sees her eyes flicker open for a moment, enough for her to roll them at him. _Typical_.

 

But wind is beginning to whip around her with enough force for him to feel it too from across the road and the darkness is pouring into the portal, widening it more and more until it looks immense enough to swallow up Emma, too. Whatever Emma had planned, the darkness seems to have other, terrible plans for her, and for a moment he fears that this is it. The Dark One needs a vessel but it doesn’t need a _living_ one, does it? What will Emma be other than skin and bones and death?

 

“Emma!” he shouts again, and this time she doesn’t open her eyes.

 

And then, another voice echoing his. “ _Emma_!” Regina cries out, and she’s racing frantically down the road from the hospital, horror in her gaze. “Emma, no!”

 

“Regina–“ He tries to grab her arm before she can launch herself at the whirling mass of darkness but she shoves him back hard enough to make him stumble and keeps going. 

 

“What the hell did you do?” she shouts into the darkness. Improbably, one of her hands stretches out and the darkness winds around it as though it recognizes her, remembers her from the last time. Regina lets it.

 

Robin thinks he’s shouting her name, begging her to stop, _what good is this if you’re both gone?_ But Regina is stepping forward, into the darkness, and tugging the dagger out from Emma’s chest. 

 

He can’t see very well from where he is, only their faces illuminated in the dark, but he sees flashes of movement. Flashes of Regina stroking Emma’s face, pulling her hair back from where it’s whipping around her. Flashes of Regina leaning in to touch Emma’s lips with her own as white magic glows from her hands and Emma’s eyes flicker open again. And then they close and Robin sees more flashes of white, brighter and brighter from where the dagger had been- no, where their _hearts_ are, the two women holding each other tightly as they kiss and kiss and kiss.

 

The light magic creates a beacon at the center of the mass of black, rising higher and higher until it explodes into the portal in a bolt of energy, and the portal is burned to nothingness at its force.

 

The dagger falls to the ground and the black tendrils sink back into Emma’s chest but it’s still so bright that they barely dim the glow she’s making with Regina. And Regina kisses her again and again until they’re only two women standing in the middle of the street making magic with their hearts.

 

Emma is the first to step back this time, touching the spot where she’d stabbed herself with amazement. “It’s all healed.” 

 

Regina brushes her fingers over Emma’s. “We healed it. With our magic.” She’s smiling and she’s crying as she does, her head falling forward to rest against Emma’s forehead. “Emma, you still have your magic inside of you. It just needed to find a part of you that could keep it. Someplace light.” 

 

“Love?” Emma says in wonder.

 

“Love.” Regina kisses her sweetly. “How do you feel?” 

 

Emma looks as though she’s about to say something that Robin would really rather not be around to hear, but then her smile fades and she says, “Still…the same.” 

 

“Yes.” Regina scoops up the dagger from the ground and flips it. _EMMA SWAN_ is still emblazoned across it. “Even love can’t stop the Dark One for good. I think it’s much more than just a simple curse.” She winds her fingers around Emma’s and says, “But now you have something inside you, something strong enough to fight it. And we’ll find Merlin and see what we can do.” 

 

“Merlin,” Emma repeats, and for the first time, she doesn’t try to contest it. 

 

* * *

 

Hook’s funeral is surprisingly well-attended. There are the usual seamen from the docks who’d known him, and his old first mate from his ship stands silently with his beanie pressed to his chest. Robin sees a few of his old Merry Men hanging about, though for his sake or Hook’s, he doesn’t know. Funerals aren’t as common in Storybrooke as they could be, and even Hook’s draws a crowd. Even Rumple and Belle have come to pay their…well, perhaps not respects in Rumple’s case.

 

And, of course, Emma Swan is here.

 

The townspeople give her a wide berth and only Rumple speaks to her briefly, but Snow White hurries over the moment she sees her and wraps her arms around her. David lingers behind her, still with his unflappable ready smile on his face, and Emma seems to relax a tiny bit with them nearby.

 

Emma is still sharp edges and stiff spine, danger emanating from her in waves, and  when she looks around it’s always a little too hungry, a little too ready to hurt. It’s unnerving if you aren’t used to it, and Emma herself is unnerving- not quite inhuman, but not quite human, either. Storybrooke hasn’t taken well to her presence, but she’s been on house arrest for the last week and has conceded to traveling from the mansion only with someone else bearing her dagger. 

 

In time, she might be ready to be on her own, but not yet. Not for a long time.

 

She cocks her head, turning with a frown on her face, and then her eyes light upon Henry, sandwiched between Granny and Ruby. He shrinks back, the burn still ugly red on his face, and Emma’s face falls.

 

Robin steps up behind her. _He’ll come around_ , he nearly says, but thinks better of making promises he can’t keep. Instead, he says, “How are you doing?” 

 

Emma shrugs. “I wanted to come pay my respects. He loved me.” She licks her lips, uncomfortable. “And he was good to me and I was the center of his life and…that really meant something to me for a long time.” A wry twist of her mouth and, “And then I killed him.” 

 

“Yes, you did,” says a loud voice from behind them. Robin and Emma twist around. It’s Hook’s first mate- Smee, maybe?- unsteady on his feet like he’d been a bit too much in the rum before he’d come here, and he’s jabbing a finger at Emma. “You ungrateful  _bitch_. He gave up everything for him and you murder him and go off…cavorting with the evil queen like a pair of dirty dy–” 

 

“Hey!” Henry is halfway across the docks in a moment, stormy-eyed with his fists balled up. “You don’t talk about them like that.” 

 

He still doesn’t meet Emma’s gaze but she stares at him in gratified wonder until Smee says, low and furious, “If I had that dagger, what I’d do in his name…” And he spits in Emma’s face.

 

Emma tenses, magic glowing in her hands and her eyes gleaming with that Dark One energy as the spittle slides down her face. The rage is coming off her in waves and she looks for a moment like she might charge forward, might slash his neck or tear out his heart with savage glee. Even Smee in his drunken stupor senses the murder emanating from her and falls silent, wide-eyed.

 

Robin nearly murmurs her name in useless warning before there’s movement behind them and Regina’s hand slides into Emma’s. “Couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere,” she mutters. “Our last Miners’ Day festival wasn’t so well-attended.” But there’s a set to her mouth that indicates that she knows what she’d walked into, and she’s angled close enough to Emma that their hands are nearly flat between their bodies. 

 

And Emma’s calming herself instead of attacking, breathing in and out in steady, long breaths as her shoulders relax and her face unsticks. Regina offers Emma a handkerchief and Emma wipes off the spittle carefully. Her eyes haven’t left Regina since she’d arrived. 

 

Smee slurs, “You should have died when that dagger took you,” and he’s slashing out wildly with a knife he’d managed to hide under his cap until now. He’s too drunk to be anywhere near accurate but Henry still hurls a punch at his face, glowing with fury as Robin disarms the man. 

 

“She saved everyone,” Henry growls out. “She was your hero before she was ever a villain.” 

 

“Henry,” Emma whispers, and Henry still won’t meet her eyes but he lets her hug him anyway and doesn’t comment when she cries into his hair. And after she’s walked away, Regina guiding her from the crowd, he watches them with tentative curiosity.

 

A few of the men go to the edge of the dock to push out the boat with Hook’s remains, and it moves forward, carried by the tide out toward the setting sun. Robin looks away as the sun’s glare makes it too difficult to watch it disappear and he catches sight of Emma and Regina down at the other end of the docks.

 

Regina's turned from the proceedings as well, leaning back against the fence around the docks, as Emma tracks the boat’s disappearance with serious eyes. She reaches out to pull the dagger from Regina's sheath, and traces the name written upon it, reflective.

 

Regina leans over to murmur something in her ear. Emma listens quietly, still playing with the dagger, and when Regina’s finished, Emma leans over and kisses her on the cheek. And Robin watches, fascinated despite himself at the way that Regina still keeps her hand clasped against Emma’s cheeks and Emma keeps her eyes open during the kiss, both of them holding onto each other as though they’re terrified the other might fade away if they let go. 

 

And they’re somber still- it is a funeral, after all- but for the first time since Emma Swan had appeared in Regina’s room with threats about her happy ending, she looks at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm half asleep again (how do these chapters happen so LATE) but I just wanted to thank everyone for all your support and feedback! It's been a wild ride this past week and I'm so glad I had y'all with me on this trip. More Heartlines + probably some other post-finale fics of some kind to come soon! Keep on keeping on and I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter/fic~ <3


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